4.09.2010

Mom's Birthday Tote Bag

I found this chrysanthemum fabric at JoAnn a few months back, but I put off purchasing it. It was $8.99 a yard and I didn't know how I could possibly incorporate such a bold fabric into a quilt. Now that I'm a JoAnn subscriber, I get all of those great coupons. I used one to get a great deal on the fabric. I found several great tote patterns online and used those as guidelines to create my first pattern.

I'm pretty pleased with how my first bag turned out. I learned a lot about taking seam allowances into consideration since I, for some reason, expected the bag to be bigger than it was. I also learned to use fusible interfacing and how to make pockets.

The bag is the perfect size to hold a set of LDS scriptures along with Sunday lesson manuals. There is also an interior pocket, so there's plenty of room for pencils or pens, gum, tissue, and whatever else goes to church with my mom.

I thought about adding a closure, but the bag was already super small. It would have rendered it almost useless for my mom's purposes. I'm working on a bigger pattern and I want to use the same fabric. That one will definitely have a cool closure.